Post by rangewalker on Feb 12, 2020 18:37:05 GMT -8
Confessions of a tent thrasher.
I carelessly lost the use of my winter solo tent mid-season during the trials of my winter backpacking set-up. I have the use of 30 plus acres of grassland shrub on the east slope of the Wyoming Bighorn mountains (5300’). My NGO office is located on the same property. I was doing three nights in a week wringing out new pads, liners, stoves out of my winter tent, a BD First Light 2p (hah hah) single wall four season tent.
The tent was set up on the grassy mat on 5-6" packed snow. Four MSR groundhogs were set into the frozen ground at the corners. Four REI snow blades laid out on 6’ lines but not fully deployed with cover. After the second test night, a -5F, that went well, I had to return to my home office for meetings and a date. So it was left unattended for 36 hours! The forecast was cloudy, no precip for the first day.
On day four, after a couple of hours in the office, I wandered down to the test site, and the tent was up in the hemlocks and ripped beyond repair. The contents, even more, $$$, were fine. Two big broken branches had knifed long gut rips along the floor and both long walls were peppered with tears. There was no snow and the grass pad was mush. When I was gone, the temps the third evening come up 50 degrees for 24 hours and the frozen ground had thawed, releasing the grip on the short stakes. When that front retreated, the cold air tumbled off the mountain front and hurled the tent into the pointy and broken tree line. The snow blades were all tangled up in the trees.
My selection of a new tent is the subject of another post. It is going to delay the new gavel-tour bike for a couple of months.
I carelessly lost the use of my winter solo tent mid-season during the trials of my winter backpacking set-up. I have the use of 30 plus acres of grassland shrub on the east slope of the Wyoming Bighorn mountains (5300’). My NGO office is located on the same property. I was doing three nights in a week wringing out new pads, liners, stoves out of my winter tent, a BD First Light 2p (hah hah) single wall four season tent.
The tent was set up on the grassy mat on 5-6" packed snow. Four MSR groundhogs were set into the frozen ground at the corners. Four REI snow blades laid out on 6’ lines but not fully deployed with cover. After the second test night, a -5F, that went well, I had to return to my home office for meetings and a date. So it was left unattended for 36 hours! The forecast was cloudy, no precip for the first day.
On day four, after a couple of hours in the office, I wandered down to the test site, and the tent was up in the hemlocks and ripped beyond repair. The contents, even more, $$$, were fine. Two big broken branches had knifed long gut rips along the floor and both long walls were peppered with tears. There was no snow and the grass pad was mush. When I was gone, the temps the third evening come up 50 degrees for 24 hours and the frozen ground had thawed, releasing the grip on the short stakes. When that front retreated, the cold air tumbled off the mountain front and hurled the tent into the pointy and broken tree line. The snow blades were all tangled up in the trees.
My selection of a new tent is the subject of another post. It is going to delay the new gavel-tour bike for a couple of months.
